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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28464126">Nature's first green is gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer'>RedBlazer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stay Gold [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha Eliot Waugh, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Dirty Talk, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Beast AU, Omega Biology is fun, Omega Quentin Coldwater, Omega Verse, References to Knotting, Summer Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:15:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,705</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28464126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is why omegas wrote the best love stories. Unrepentant romantics at their core, the lot of them. Regardless of how much Quentin tried to deny it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stay Gold [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084943</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>147</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nature's first green is gold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>WOW OKAY. So I fell hard into this fic! Thank you to everyone who listened to me rant about how much I wanted to make Quentin an omega and give him a period so much that I had to start a multi-part work about just such a thing. Thank you to everyone on the server who took a look at this and gave me feedback! After several months of not being able to write anything, this was such a treasure to be able to work on. </p>
<p>I can't promise when the next part will come out, but lots of it is written!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Quentin went into Brakebills with every intention of spending his time exactly as he had before. Alone. But with </span>
  <em>
    <span>magic.</span>
  </em>
  <span> With a bare minimum of socialization thrown in to keep him sane. And when it turned out that Julia inexplicably had magic too and would be on campus with him--well that just made sense. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that just hadn’t been possible. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot had to go and spend every day of Quentin’s three week orientation to campus dragging him out on little excursions until Margo came back around. Whoever she was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d never spent so much time around an alpha before. His experience was limited to James, who’d lived with Julia for about six months until she’d realized she was the kind of beta who needed her space. Because having an alpha around could be </span>
  <em>
    <span>a lot.</span>
  </em>
  <span> They sprawled, took over space. Regardless of whatever social media campaign kept targeting omegas with the message that they could be assertive and powerful, Quentin just sort of </span>
  <em>
    <span>wilted</span>
  </em>
  <span> when he was around alphas for too long. It drained him of all vitality, made him want to go be away from everything that made noise and took up space. In the time he’d lived with James, Quentin had found himself pushed further out of their common areas until he’d spent all of his time in his bedroom. Which, he hadn’t even realized could be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bad</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing until he had no other option. James hadn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant to.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He was a nice guy, a little boring for Quentin’s tastes. Like two magnets with the same poles, Quentin just was repelled by most alphas.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot was </span>
  <em>
    <span>different. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He didn’t sprawl so much as envelop everything in his path, wrap it up in his warmth and before he knew it, Quentin considered them </span>
  <em>
    <span>friends</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Maybe that made him naive. That someone like Eliot would want to be his friend and didn’t just want to fuck him. Of course, it was pretty clear to Quentin that Eliot </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> also want to fuck him. Very much so. Quentin could smell it on him, how his deep masculine scent of whiskey and cedar took on a char, like burnt barrels, and seemed to permeate everything. But Quentin was used to that. Used to ignoring the smell of turned on alpha.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His mother said too many people </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘indulged’</span>
  </em>
  <span> him. Yeah. Probably. But when you’re a kid that felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>great,</span>
  </em>
  <span> to always get your way and have kids share with you on the playground. Now he didn’t even really want the attention.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>needy. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Or at least he didn’t try to be. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still, Eliot pulled him in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it wasn’t exactly an </span>
  <em>
    <span>uncommon </span>
  </em>
  <span>occurrence for alphas to hit on Quentin based </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the fact that he was an omega, even if they had nothing in common. Men. Women. Whoever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Oh, what a problem to have.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Julia had lamented to him once, sitting on the floor of her bedroom in eighth grade while they dug through the </span>
  <em>
    <span>boxes </span>
  </em>
  <span>of candy he’d been given that Valentine's day. Yes, it very much </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> a problem when it seemed like he really couldn’t trust any alpha’s word at face value.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because boxes of candy in middle school had morphed into pretty intense declarations of intent on </span>
  <em>
    <span>sight</span>
  </em>
  <span> every time Quentin went out to a bar, male omegas being pretty rare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For about a hot second, Quentin had found it </span>
  <em>
    <span>flattering. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Even kind of sexy, to be sought after like that. He didn’t pay for a single drink for the extent of his ‘slutty phase’.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin’s slutty phase in college had lasted about six months, long enough to figure out that every alpha he’d hooked up with hadn’t wanted Quentin for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him, </span>
  </em>
  <span>they just wanted him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>say</span>
  </em>
  <span> they had him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This three week fling with Eliot was different. At least that’s what he told himself, lying awake in his bed while Penny snored ten feet away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot wanted Quentin around despite his general bitchiness that went against everything mainstream media told him an omega should be. And Eliot </span>
  <em>
    <span>looked</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him like he wanted to take Quentin’s clothes off with his teeth. He kept coming back day after day. Sure, the guy wanted to fuck him (and the feeling was mutual on Quentin’s end) but for reasons beyond Quentin’s imagination, Eliot actually seemed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin--for real. As a person. Which was a real head trip since he’d really only been able to call Julia a genuine friend, his crush on her long since crystallizing into a mildly mortifying cornerstone of their friendship.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure there was James, but Quentin hadn’t really </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span> any alphas beyond a hookup or a group project. He knew </span>
  <em>
    <span>about</span>
  </em>
  <span> them like Jane Goodall knew about chimps. He’d watch them with their little rituals and their preening from the sidelines. But it all just felt so hollow? Quentin would hear about couples getting together right before heat getting </span>
  <em>
    <span>married</span>
  </em>
  <span> the next year and think to himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>do they even really </span>
  </em>
  <span>like</span>
  <em>
    <span> each other? Do they have anything in common?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that Quentin’s beta parents had been the paragon of love of anything. And thus, hadn’t been able to shed any sort of light on the situation for their son. Mostly, Ted worried about teen pregnancy and cautiously asked Quentin if anyone would be ‘staying’ in the basement with him when his heats came regularly. Which was really pretty progressive for Ted, when Quentin thought about it now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d wanted to spend his heat with someone, sure. The same way he wanted to go be the king of Fillory. He had </span>
  <em>
    <span>no </span>
  </em>
  <span>idea what he would have done if either thing were to happen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even less of an idea what to do with </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eliot </span>
  </em>
  <span>around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At first, Quentin had blamed his own general slack-jawed giddiness around Eliot on the fact that </span>
  <em>
    <span>magic was real</span>
  </em>
  <span> for those lazy end of summer weeks before campus filled up</span>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Found himself zoning out while Eliot rowed them out on the lake in a white linen suit. Honest to god trembling when Eliot took his hands and taught him his first Popper in the common room of The Cottage, little sparks shooting from his hands--and he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>giggled.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Eliot even seemed to find it charming when Quentin wasn’t in a mood to hang with anyone at all, still pulling Quentin past a perplexed Penny with a promise that brunch would cure Quentin of his “end of summer doldrums.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He said shit like </span>
  <em>
    <span>doldrums</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Quentin didn’t want to punch him in the face. It was such a </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span> face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot made Quentin sugary, sweet drinks, and then Quentin would go jerk off in the hall bathroom shower thinking about Eliot’s hands muddling mint and limes. But how could he not when Eliot said things like, “Sweets for my sweetness,” while sliding a handcrafted cocktail across the bar to him?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like an artist, carefully chiseling away at a block of marble, Eliot had revealed something in him--that had to be why Quentin hadn’t gone, “Shut the fuck up,” at such an obviously saccharine line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was living in one of those Big Pharma commercials for antidepressants, everything vivid and hopeful for the first time. Doing things like smiling to himself when Eliot threw pebbles up at his dorm window in the middle of the night, much to Penny’s rage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin let it go on for five days before he finally made his move.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The moment Quentin found himself laying on his back across a blanket under a meteor shower, he should have known that magic wasn’t the culprit for the fluttering in his chest. Because he hadn’t even been looking at the stars, not at all. He’d been laying there, hearing not a word of the story Eliot was telling about Margo taking him to the Griffith Observatory to watch </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Rebel Without a Cause’</span>
  </em>
  <span> out on the lawn, watching his lips move. And it just didn’t seem possible to Quentin that he didn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> Margo, but had gone on so many adventures by proxy through Eliot’s stories. Blinking in the darkness as Eliot formed words, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, Quentin was overcome with an urge to kiss this alpha beside him. Do more than kiss him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wanted to rub his face over every inch of Eliot’s skin, scentmark him so intensely that anyone would know he was taken at fifty paces, filling Quentin with pride that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’d </span>
  </em>
  <span>left his mark all over Eliot. That Quentin’s own--‘Bath and Bodyworks’ as Julia called it--scent of overripe peaches, cherries, and almonds might blend with Eliot’s whiskey scent and smell like the most mouthwatering cocktail known to man.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He daydreamed about sharing coffee cups and living in each other's pockets. Walking through life, untouchable to any other alpha with Eliot’s scent all over him. He’d belong to Eliot. Not trapped. Belonging. Fuck, even the idea of pulling Eliot into his nest when his heat hit him, it made Quentin dizzy with </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibility. </span>
  </em>
  <span>A total fever dream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t nest, who had </span>
  <em>
    <span>time</span>
  </em>
  <span> to nest, or even an extra set of bedding to devote to building one? But he’d build one for Eliot, even if it was composed of his old pilling flannel sheets and a cheap Ikea comforter like the one he’d brought with him and immediately shoved in the shared ‘den’ of a closet he shared with Penny even if neither one of them made a move to utilize the space. Sometimes Penny meditated there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is why omegas wrote the best love stories. Unrepentant romantics at their core, the lot of them. Regardless of how much Quentin tried to deny it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot made a little “Mrph--” sound when Quentin’s lips caught his, in the process of turning to the omega to ask if he wanted anymore wine from the picnic basket near their heads. Damn him, he gave Quentin a few precious seconds of stunned silence before rolling on top of him, Quentin never happier than to have his whole body pressed down into the blanket and grass. Breathing the same air as the alpha, legs spreading to feel the heat of Eliot’s dick in the cradle of his hips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t do this if you’re not gonna be my friend after--</span>
  <em>
    <span>okay?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin managed through buzzing lips moments later as Eliot nosed down his neck, brushing his scent gland while Quentin’s hips bucked involuntarily, his toes curling in his shoes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck--no. Never. Whatever you want, Q.” Eliot pulled away then, just up on his elbows enough to look Quentin in the eye. As much as he could considering how dark it was far from the light pollution of the city. “God--you smell so good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow he didn’t even get to </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> Eliot’s dick that night, though he could tell it was huge pressing against him while they made out. Apparently Eliot was a gentleman enough to rut against him until Quentin came with a cut off whimper like a wild animal, but wouldn’t do anything more afterwards than walk him home and kiss Quentin against the pillar by the door to the dorms until his lips were numb.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Luckily, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he was not so </span>
  <em>
    <span>gentlemanly </span>
  </em>
  <span>the very next day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--------</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, wait, wait--” Quentin pulled away, drunk on the feeling of Eliot’s hands </span>
  <em>
    <span>everywhere, </span>
  </em>
  <span>capturing Quentin’s own and holding them tight, all fingers clasped together, smoothing down his ribs and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pulling </span>
  </em>
  <span>at his hair. Eliot’s lips tripped after his clumsily, skipping over his chin to mouth below his ear. “I mean-</span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t stop.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Just, there’s no one here? You swear?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot swore in so much that he promised no one called the Cottage home over summer break but himself and Margo; still he used it as an opportunity to draw Quentin off his lap, and up two flights of stairs to his room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laid Quentin out on the floor, in the middle ground between the door and the bed Quentin barely got a look at before the alpha’s strong hands pulled him down to the floor, rolling on top of him. Crushed under his weight, Quentin grasped for any bit of Eliot he could touch, popping a few buttons off his shirt in a desperate attempt to finally get his hands on skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re getting wet for me--” Eliot muttered, mouth so close to his ear that the vibrations rattled through Quentin’s body unchecked. “How’d I get so lucky to have you in my bed--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“On the floor.” Quentin panted, smiling wildly up at Eliot as the alpha surged overhead, easily trapping Quentin’s wrists, pinning them to the floor among the cushions littered all over with a wild look of delight. Curls falling over his forehead with a toothy grin, and he was having </span>
  <em>
    <span>fun, </span>
  </em>
  <span>playing with Quentin like a kitten with a toy, batting it around for hours. Eliot was </span>
  <em>
    <span>fun</span>
  </em>
  <span> to do things with, like learning a new card game. Chaotic while trying to get a hang of it, but a blast if you had the right partner.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“On the floor.” Eliot agreed, dipping until his lips met Quentin’s, licking over his bottom lip just so Quentin would gasp, mouth falling open. Moaning into his mouth, Quentin struggled against Eliot’s hold on him just to feel that coiled strength behind every soft look Eliot had given him, every metaphorical flower he’d plucked and handed over so gently. “On </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> floor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good floor.” Quentin agreed, nodding. “You--you’re um. This doesn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>happen</span>
  </em>
  <span> to me, El--Eliot. Okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except that it did. And it </span>
  <em>
    <span>had. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But as much as Eliot had chosen Quentin, Quentin had chosen </span>
  <em>
    <span>him too.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Straddling Quentin now, there was nothing he could do except accept that life worked in mysterious and delightful ways sometimes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re here now. With me. It’s happening. If you want--” Eliot let go of Quentin’s wrists and Quentin </span>
  <em>
    <span>stayed. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He wasn’t fully in control of his limbs at the moment. Even less in control as Eliot began to work his way out of his clothes all while staring down at Quentin like he was going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>eat</span>
  </em>
  <span> him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which, Quentin really hoped he would.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. Yep. I want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wanted to feel Eliot’s lips over every plane of his body, feel him work Quentin open with that articulate mouth that loved to wrap its way around fantastical stories that were too fabulous to be totally true. Quentin needed to get a grip--he wanted one of those stories to be about </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>...I met this lovely omega on his first day at Brakebills, swept him off his feet and out of his pants by dinner time...</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was nothing he could do but stare as Eliot loosened his tie, throwing it over his shoulder so that he could begin to work on the buttons of his shirt. Luckily, by scattering a few, Quentin had already made some headway there. Before he knew it, Eliot was shirtless. He shouldn’t have been surprised that every part of Eliot’s body was just as captivating as the last. That Eliot’s broad shoulders and upper arms were well muscled and every part of him was so touchable. He wanted to bury his face in Eliot’s chest hair, mouth over it because he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>starving. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And Eliot </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Smirking as Quentin’s hips futilely tried to grind upwards, a parody of where he wanted to be, with their positions reversed in </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eliot’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> lap, riding his dick until his eyes rolled back in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin felt it now, the slickness soaking into his underwear, the feeling of desperation that came with it. Making his thighs tense, his core pulsing with heat at the wet friction of his cotton briefs against his hole. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now. Now. Now. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He was ready now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot let out a little laugh to himself, “Look at you.” he reached out, smudging his thumb over Quentin’s bruised lips, gasping when Quentin nipped at the digit just a bit, just because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>with it right there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m busy looking at </span>
  <em>
    <span>you.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin panted. “El, come on. Please just--I like really </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>you to fuck me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“With this?” Eliot asked, mock-innocence seeping into every syllable as he unbuttoned his pants and fished out what was definitely the biggest dick Quentin had seen outside of porn, and the </span>
  <em>
    <span>prettiest</span>
  </em>
  <span> one he’d ever seen, period.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my god, you’re so fucking full of it--yes, obviously.” Quentin babbled, indignant that was even like a question Eliot had to ask while his hand had wrapped around the shaft at the base, where loose skin would expand into a knot when he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>all the way inside</span>
  </em>
  <span> when Quentin was in heat. Cosmo said alphas knotted more regularly in committed relationships. A biological imperative.</span>
  <em>
    <span> A special occasion, if you will.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He hoped he’d get to see it someday, feel it pressing inside him in all directions. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>face</span>
  </em>
  <span> might have been Quentin’s favorite thing Eliot to look at, but now, having seen the fat, nearly purple head of his cock disappearing into his own fist, he could be swayed in a different direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll give it to you. Don’t worry. I know you can take it for me.” Eliot said, and Quentin couldn’t be sure if he was smiling at Quentin or if his eyes had narrowed sensually because Eliot’s dick was </span>
  <em>
    <span>right there</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Quentin’s mouth was suddenly watering. “What do you want? Whatever it is, you’ve got it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he told him, in broken off sentences between kisses and gasps, how he wanted Eliot to touch him, help him get his own clothes off. So Eliot could mark him all over with his scent, his lips warm as he kissed his way down Quentin’s body, stripping off his shirt and pants, hooking both of his socks with two fingers and flinging them over his shoulder never to be seen again. Which, really shouldn’t have been as appealing as it was, but Quentin wasn’t in his right mind. Not when Eliot was scooping him up off the floor and carrying Quentin to his bed with an ease that made Quentin’s stomach swoop like he was on a rollercoaster. Here, among Eliot’s sheets where he slept each night, Quentin was suffused with heat, surrounded on all sides by this </span>
  <em>
    <span>man</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot climbed up onto the bed after him, spreading Quentin’s legs with an easy touch to kneel between them. Quentin shivered as he laid there from the sensation of Eliot’s palms smoothing up over his shins and thighs, brushing through the hair on his legs he couldn’t even be concerned with being embarrassed about at the moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is a surprise.” Eliot doubled back, nails lightly grazing back down Quentin’s legs. He sat up on his knees between Quentin’s legs, his dick so heavy with blood that it couldn’t even stand up straight, listing to the side. Quentin shuddered to think how heavy and full it would feel inside of him. “You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>furry.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up--” Quentin blushed, felt the heat travel from his cheeks all the way down to his chest. “I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> this was gonna happen.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As if he would have done anything with his body hair to begin with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And beauty standards were bullshit or whatever. Still, it just made him all too aware how different he looked than most omegas he’d seen in porn with their smooth swaths of skin and bleached assholes. Should have sent his hackles up because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>unattainable beauty standards </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>stereotyping omega body types. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin still jerked off to it all the same. Only, now his fantasies would center around the crinkles around Eliot’s eyes as he drew his hands up and down over Quentin’s thighs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>love </span>
  </em>
  <span>it.” Eliot assured him, drawing Quentin’s knee up to kiss the inside where there was suddenly a concentration of nerve endings Quentin had never noticed before. That had to be the explanation for the drawn out, embarrassingly loud noises Quentin was making. It was just so unfair that Quentin was forced to stare down at Eliot just then, as the alpha spoke against his skin. “My hairy little omega. Nothing wrong with some manscaping, but this is better than all the waxing I’ve seen lately.” Traveling up Quentin’s thighs as he spoke, pausing here and there to nose at his skin, Quentin had to look away and grasp the sheets in both his hands. “You’re so pretty, everywhere, Quentin. This body--fuck. But I bet this part of you is just outstanding.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin may have blacked out as he felt the damp pressure of Eliot mouthing over his underwear, licking across the grey cotton where it stretched over Quentin’s erection. Quentin twitched and sobbed, couldn’t stop himself from reaching for Eliot’s shoulder with one hand, squeezing to egg him on. It was so much and not enough, the long strokes of Eliot’s tongue, joined by his thumbs, pressing gingerly under the elastic of his underwear right at the crease where he was wet and aching. What a fucking tease. Heels somehow digging into Eliot’s back, the alpha chuckled against Quentin’s balls.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which--</span>
  <em>
    <span>no, </span>
  </em>
  <span>had never been a </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin had wanted to experience before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he’d like to again!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot inhaled deeply against him, Quentin groaned, thighs attempting to tighten closed on their own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mmm, peach. You smell like peaches--” Eliot said. He was probably the kind of guy who could sense </span>
  <em>
    <span>notes </span>
  </em>
  <span>in pretentious-ass wine and the thought that he was getting them off Quentin right now was going to kill him. “Marzipan, too. Five spice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was literally going to flood the bed if Eliot kept this up, “Eliot--if you keep teasing me I will--</span>
  <em>
    <span>so help me.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin panted, heels digging into Eliot’s back as the alpha sucked a hickey into his upper thigh, blood pumping in his ears. “Please, put your fingers in me--your </span>
  <em>
    <span>hands.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve got you,” Eliot spoke into his skin, nuzzling in, getting Quentin’s scent all over his cheeks and lips, scraping his thighs with five o’clock shadow. And Quentin was blinking back </span>
  <em>
    <span>tears</span>
  </em>
  <span> of frustration, empty inside as Eliot drew his underwear down his legs, baring all of Quentin to him. “Of course you have the sweetest little dick.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin squeaked, embarrassment flooding his system, somehow fueling the heat inside him. He felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>small</span>
  </em>
  <span> in comparison to Eliot. In all ways. But in one </span>
  <em>
    <span>huge</span>
  </em>
  <span> way. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> dick after all, he’d been looking at it for his entire life. But now that Eliot had practically the whole thing wrapped up in one hand, holding it like a baby bird or something, it was enough to crack Quentin open. Made him want to blush and hide, but Eliot wouldn’t let him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sensing the shift in his mood, Eliot let go, thumbs running over the points of Quentin’s hips in tight circles. “Hey--hey, it’s okay. I’m here.” Eliot shushed him, crawling back up his body. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin nodded, still hyperventilating. Only now doing so in the hollow where Eliot’s neck met his shoulder, where the tips of his curls brushed Quentin’s face and he was going to rattle apart if it wasn’t for Eliot’s hand bracketing his neck, gentling him. Fuck--he hadn’t let </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone</span>
  </em>
  <span> do this. Press their hand over the gland under his ear that made Quentin go </span>
  <em>
    <span>liquid, </span>
  </em>
  <span>yielding. He could be convinced to do anything like this with how pliant it made him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve got you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot kissed him then, but Quentin was too fucking high on the endorphins flooding his system to do anything than let the alpha take over. Hot all over, Quentin whimpered into Eliot’s mouth, reaching between them to grasp Eliot’s dick where it was lined up against his stomach, all the way up to his navel </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Blearily, Quentin tried to catalog the circumference of Eliot’s dick for when he inevitably would need to find a dildo in exactly the same proportions. One that his hand couldn’t even close around with a thick, pronounced head and heavy balls at the base. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But nothing would be as good as the real thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This was addictive. Pure sensation. Nothing was </span>
  <em>
    <span>like this</span>
  </em>
  <span> before. They wouldn’t even need lube for Eliot to sink his way inside if he fucked Quentin. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He needed Eliot to fuck him. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This really was like porn.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shhhhh. You’re okay.” Eliot whispered, pulling away. But he looked just as fucked out and desperate as Quentin felt with his hair in a disarray and his liquid eyes. “You want my fingers, sweetness? Tell me.” Quentin nodded, bottom lip clamped between his teeth so hard he was going to draw blood. “No. No. No. Don’t hurt yourself. Come on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And honestly there were much better things to be doing with his mouth, like sucking on Eliot’s fingers when the alpha’s hand left his neck. Peaches and cloves filled his senses, his own scent so concentrated on Eliot’s skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck, baby.” Eliot spoke into his neck, with a groan. “You’re so sweet. Lemme take care of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He came within seconds of Eliot drawing his fingers out of his mouth, reaching down to slot them easily into Quentin’s hole. Quentin’s hand clamped down on Eliot’s hair, pulled the alpha down harder into his neck, head thrown back, wanting to feel the sharp pain of his teeth clamping down on his skin. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mate me. Make me yours. Never let me go.</span>
  </em>
  <span> So out of his mind as he clenched and came all over Eliot’s fingers and his own stomach that he couldn’t be disappointed when Eliot’s closed lips pressed over the gland on his neck rather than giving him his teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin warbled though his orgasm, drawn out by Eliot’s clever fingers curling deep inside, pulling wave after wave of pleasure out of him until it coalesced into overstimulation that he cried through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There you go.” Eliot spoke against his neck, dropping chaste kisses across Quentin’s chest, his closed eyelids. “You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>glowing.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin cried out as Eliot gave his prostate another curling pet with his fingertips, grasping the alpha’s wrist with his hand, pulse thrumming under Quentin’s fingertips. But he couldn’t draw Eliot’s hand away, hindbrain demanding that he had something inside to clench down on the aftershocks. “Quentin? You in there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mmmm hmmm.” Quentin nodded, gasping when Eliot rolled off of him, pulling the omega into his side. Miraculously, his fingers stayed in the warm clutch of Quentin’s body. “Whatever you say.” he slurred.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like this, he could draw his leg up, rest it against Eliot’s thigh so he was open to the room, slick cooling against his thighs. He fully stuck his face in Eliot’s armpit, would even admit to it in a court of law. It was a good armpit. Damp and dark. Smelled like some fancy library with a fire crackling and an open decanter on the sideboard. A place perfect for hiding. He should get out of there before he did something horrific like licking away the perspiration there. There had to be a limit to how much of Quentin’s hindbrain desperate antics Eliot would put up with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe not. But still, he couldn’t test it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot pet over Quentin’s head, a shuddering laugh rolling through his body--ticklish, so Quentin extracted himself with a crimson blush across his cheeks. Still hard, he pressed himself against Eliot’s hips and rocked into him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>unreal.</span>
  </em>
  <span> You know that?” Eliot groaned. A deep, satisfied rumble sounded from Eliot’s chest where Quentin had his ear mashed against Eliot’s ribs. He let out an involuntary happy chuff in reply. Later, Quentin would question </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’d made that sound since it had never happened before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You are.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin slurred, indignant. Eliot drew his fingers out, rubbed against the slickness of his entrance with all four fingers, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hrnnghhhh.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin’s leg kicked like a puppy, out of his control.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The slick staccato sound of skin on skin caught Quentin’s attention, the sight of Eliot jacking himself with his free hand while </span>
  <em>
    <span>looking at Quentin</span>
  </em>
  <span> sent a bolt of heat right through him. “Are you fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>serious?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t wear you out?” Eliot asked, far too articulate while still rubbing his fingertips over Quentin’s lax opening and jerking himself off. The sexual version of patting his head and rubbing his stomach at the same time. Who the fuck was this guy?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you did, I’d still expect you to fuck me. Not to brag--the whole multiple orgasm thing is just about the only perk to being an omega.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot closed his eyes, squeezing down tight on the base of his dick with a punched out groan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not the </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> perk, I’m sure. You have a </span>
  <em>
    <span>stellar </span>
  </em>
  <span>personality, baby.” Somehow, some way Eliot was able to draw his hands away from himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin without losing a finger in the process. “You’re sure, you still want me to fuck you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. So much. Do you have a condom?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot pulled him close, hand running up and down Quentin’s back soothingly, his other remained possessively on Quentin’s ass, still damp.“This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>a line. But it’s going to sound a hell of a lot like one. We can use a condom, but I have a spell for that if you’d rather not.” He let the words hang there, face impassive. Fine either way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait--” Quentin jolted up, getting his knees under himself so he could look Eliot in the eye. He planted his hands on Eliot’s shoulders to show he </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant business.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “What are you talking about? There’s birth control spells?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot smiled, seemingly endlessly patient while his giant hog of a dick was still hard and lolling against his stomach. His hands squeezed Quentin’s hips. They couldn’t stop touching each other.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course, leave it to magicians to cover their bases. They’re practically ancient spells.” Eliot said, “Spells for protection against STDs and for contraception. Other fun spells but I think we’re doing just fine on our own there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin’s mouth dropped open. All these years of telling himself he couldn’t go through heat with an alpha or a beta until he found a long term birth control solution. It just wasn’t feasible to rely on condoms for a full week of heat. Not when Quentin felt so primally desperate to be bred. It just felt so risky and irresponsible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can still use one, of course--sometimes the mess isn’t--” Eliot spoke, filling Quentin’s shocked silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was pretty sure Eliot was going to tell him how he wasn’t going to risk getting come all over one of his precious vests during a quickie, but Quentin was too preoccupied with climbing into Eliot’s lap, kissing him hungrily. If Eliot was surprised, he didn’t show it, rolling with Quentin grinding down against his dick like he’d scripted the whole thing. Quentin shuddered at his hands clasping Quentin’s hips, drawing him back and forth while Quentin bit down on his lip, licked inside Eliot’s mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s really slutty of me to be this turned on that you can fuck me bare, isn’t it?” Quentin panted against his lips when he pulled away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot’s pupils absolutely blew at the words, till they were an inky sea of blackness with a slim ring of sea glass.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where the fuck did you come from again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“New Jersey.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rest of it was a blur, which felt like a cliche, but so was the moment when Eliot finally thrust inside of him and Quentin came again, gripping Eliot’s shoulder tightly, “Don’t stop, keep going.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> If it had been bad or even just </span>
  <em>
    <span>average</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin wouldn’t have totally lost himself over to the rhythm of Eliot’s hips meeting Quentin’s with every delicious grind of his dick. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>life ruiningly good.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So good that when Eliot pulled out with a panicked look in his eyes, one hand reaching between them to grip himself, Quentin went up on his elbows to frantically follow him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry--sorry.” Eliot muttered, head on the point of Quentin’s shoulder as he got himself under control. In the darkness between their bodies Quentin could make out the wet, throbbing line of Eliot’s dick, thickening at the base where he was gripping it tightly. Quentin was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> above filing that away for all of his fantasies later. “I didn’t mean to--just give me a second.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Quentin--Quentin was trying to rationalize this in his fucked out brain. That Eliot popped a knot the first time he’d been inside, so quickly too. He couldn’t stop staring at it in Eliot’s hand, flushed with blood and expanding--it should be </span>
  <em>
    <span>inside</span>
  </em>
  <span> of him, right then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay.” Quentin kissed his cheek, ran a hand through Eliot’s hair while the alpha panted above him, balancing on his knees and elbows. “You can. It’s alright. I can take it.” He clenched at the idea of Eliot pushing in deep, locking them together for however long his knot lasted once it caught. He could deal with the pinchy too-full feeling for Eliot. Anything for him really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” Eliot sighed, shaking. “That’s not--you’re not ready for that. I don’t want to hurt you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was such a blessing that Eliot wasn’t looking at Quentin at that moment. Quentin’s jaw dropped and he had to wrap both his arms around Eliot, hold him close, hands running over Eliot’s back all dotted with perspiration. He didn’t argue as it occurred to Quentin with certain clarity that he hadn’t been ready the few other times either, not really. Had just been so taken by surprise by the act that he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone along</span>
  </em>
  <span> for the ride so to speak. But it hadn’t been good. Not for Quentin. Mostly he’d counted down the moments until the alphas had gone down enough to slip back out after a little while. In heat, it lasted longer, if porn and Cosmo were to be believed, twenty or even thirty minutes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wanted Eliot to come, to feel good after making Quentin feel so amazing since, well, since Quentin had met him on testing day, really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Here,” Quentin slipped his hand down between their bodies, meeting Eliot’s. He cupped Eliot’s growing knot between both of their hands, Eliot shuddered against him, whining low in his throat. Fuck, Quentin could feel it pulsing with blood in his hand, slippery with slick from Quentin and so </span>
  <em>
    <span>hot</span>
  </em>
  <span> to the touch, it didn’t seem possible. It made Quentin feel impossibly tender in that moment, holding something so </span>
  <em>
    <span>delicate</span>
  </em>
  <span> in his hands, this part of Eliot meant for making babies and bringing pleasure to his mate--so Quentin had heard. “Like this, come on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin rolled onto his side away from the alpha, beckoning Eliot to join him, slot his dick between the omega’s legs where it was slippery with slick. He clamped his legs shut and reached behind, holding Eliot’s knot with a hand, practically crushed between their bodies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is this okay?” Quentin asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot chuffed in his ear in reply, arms coiling around Quentin possessively, holding him back against his body while his hips ground against Quentin’s ass. Quentin felt heat rise in him again at the dirty friction of Eliot’s cock between his legs, the head poking at the back of his balls with every thrust. Eliot’s face was pressed into Quentin’s neck, breathing so hard he blew Quentin’s hair in every direction, his hands playing over Quentin’s chest, tweaking his nipples.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d been right, of course. As Eliot’s knot swelled in Quentin’s hand, it was so large that Quentin knew he wouldn’t have been able to take it without some serious prep, regardless of what magic could do. He squeezed his hand around Eliot rhythmically, trying to mimic how his muscles would milk an alpha when he was locked inside. Just the friction of Eliot thrusting against his ass was getting Quentin hard again, his dick jolted with every one of Eliot’s small thrusts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my god--you feel so good.” Eliot growled against his throat. “I’m gonna give it to you so good one day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot’s hands tightened on Quentin then as he shuddered. Quentin knew he’d have little fingertip bruises littering his hips and ribs when this was all over, the mark Eliot had left on his thigh tingling with every one of Eliot’s movements as he came. There was just </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much of it.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Seemed like such a waste, which </span>
  <em>
    <span>gross.</span>
  </em>
  <span> No more gross than when Quentin ran a hand over himself, gathering some up to jerk himself off, with frantic movements like the world was about to end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“New Jersey, huh?” Eliot asked, lazily passing Quentin his cigarette. Oh how Quentin wanted Eliot to look like this </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> with his hair askew and flushed cheeks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Satisfied. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The feeling mirrored in himself at </span>
  <em>
    <span>pleasing</span>
  </em>
  <span> such a creature.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The Garden State.” Quentin nodded. He took a drag and exhaled towards the ceiling where the haze of smoke displaced as it met some kind of charm on the air itself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eighth Wonder of the World, I’d imagine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin snorted, “Shut the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck up.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sheets around their waists, Eliot pulled Quentin into his side, a contented rumbling purr in his chest. Quentin tucked in closely, smiling privately to himself as Eliot finished his cigarette.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was only mid-afternoon. And they had so much time yet to spend together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--------</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin should have known nothing so good as Eliot could last forever. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Nothing gold can stay’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>and all that. A poem he’d highlighted in his paperback copy of ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>The Outsiders’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>the summer before sixth grade. The first book he’d read where one of the characters had </span>
  <em>
    <span>died</span>
  </em>
  <span> besides ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>Charlotte’s Web’</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When second and third years poured back onto campus, filling every room with new sights and smells, Quentin had felt just as forlorn and </span>
  <em>
    <span>betrayed </span>
  </em>
  <span>as he’d been when he’d finished </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Outsiders</span>
  </em>
  <span> by flashlight under his covers, crying for Johnny with great, gutting sobs.. A tough omega neglected by his parents, but surrounded by a group of protective alphas and betas who might as well have been his family. And while Quentin wasn’t dying young after an act of bravery, it felt like he was. In some small, superficial way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he was not brave enough to stand up and do something about it like Johnny had, so he just let Eliot go. The easier choice with much more difficult consequences.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot went, first to Margo when she swept back onto campus and physically pulled Eliot in the complete opposite direction without anything more than a, “He isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> cute.” Eliot had the decency to look apologetic, motioning between himself and the tiny omega stalking away with him like there was nothing he could do to stop her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Quentin had just waved them off, blushing a little that Eliot, a big, strong alpha would let himself be so easily pulled along by someone half his size. It was fascinating that he could be so close to an omega and </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> be their mate. Jealousy bubbling up in his chest had been like a spark to gunpowder the next time he got Eliot alone--up in his attic room, slamming the door behind them by pushing Eliot up against it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s gotten </span>
  <em>
    <span>into you?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Self doubt and a little desperation?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that it had done anything to stop a revolving door of men of all designations from sizing Quentin up like competition for Eliot’s attention at his first Cottage party. Oh, so that’s how it was. Quentin had a feeling Eliot was a big deal--having learned to take Eliot’s stories with a grain of salt, so when Eliot’s braggadocios account of his first year of Brakebills had turned out to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>true,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin knew he was fucked. Eliot had </span>
  <em>
    <span>admirers. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They lined up to talk to him behind the bar, and Quentin had watched from the other side of the room while Julia talked at him about her schedule.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t have any claim to Eliot. Not really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he did, Eliot wouldn’t have been flirting </span>
  <em>
    <span>back</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck, Quentin was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Hadn’t Eliot told him in so many ways that he didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> monogamy? That he </span>
  <em>
    <span>never did this,</span>
  </em>
  <span> when he had Quentin in his bed night after night. And Quentin had been oblivious enough to think he was just benefiting from all of Eliot’s vast experience with his many partners, that he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>different. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Not just a distraction until school started again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So quickly his walls had come down when he’d met an alpha he was actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>impressed </span>
  </em>
  <span>by. Not some hero from a romance novel or a romantic comedy--they’d never cast someone so tall--just like Quentin wasn’t exactly the kind of guy someone would base a whole love story around. It was just then that Quentin realized how quickly he’d been swept off his feet, told himself that he deserved his fling with Eliot and who knew maybe even like a life after Brakebills that wasn’t just him tagging along after Julia. He’d thought that Eliot wanted him not despite the fact that Quentin was complicated--which read as such a basic ass ‘I’m not like other omegas, I’m a cool omega’ statement--but because the jagged bits of Quentin were part of a larger whole.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck it, Quentin was every stereotype out of heat porn without the brain melting hormones. Thinking about Eliot. Wanting Eliot. His time. His attention. His body. And now he was fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>heartbroken</span>
  </em>
  <span> that Eliot wasn’t making a move, didn’t correct anyone about who Quentin had been to him for those three short weeks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin just couldn't do half measures when it came to Eliot. Wouldn’t let himself be strung along, waiting impatiently for Eliot to want him back in his bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d made peace a long time ago with the fact that he couldn’t always get what he wanted. And thus, made peace with this whole Eliot affair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was all too easy to break whatever they’d been off completely. If Eliot wanted to see him, Quentin was busy. With classes. Studying. Trying to figure out his concentration. Whatever.  He didn’t make an effort to see the alpha, and Eliot didn’t chase people. Why would he need to?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So. He and Eliot were done before they even really began.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Confirmation came when Quentin was pawned off on the Physical Kids and he became privy to the comings and goings of Eliot’s various hookups. He tried not to think about it. He had to watch Eliot make a select few of these guys breakfast the morning after while skulking around for coffee.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m lactose intolerant.” The random guy in the breakfast nook said, a lip curled at the plate Eliot put in front of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Here, you need to eat breakfast.” Eliot said, passing Quentin an omelette with an </span>
  <em>
    <span>explosion</span>
  </em>
  <span> of cheese in the middle as he went back to cracking more eggs with haste.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If that wasn’t bad enough, Margo was next door to Quentin. Because if Eliot wasn’t upstairs rattling the pendant light above Quentin’s bed with acrobatic sex, then he was next door with </span>
  <em>
    <span>Margo. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Giggling at every hour of the night, stumbling in from locations unknown to wake everyone up on the floor. Gossiping with the door open just to catch him when he tried to slip out of The Cottage to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>anywhere else.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey Q--don’t make that face. Hey! I see you!” Margo shouted, head lolling off Eliot’s lap from their spot lounging on the beg, “What’s it like being so antisocial, the only party you’ve made it to this year was the one we threw in the library?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>inconvenient.” Quentin grumbled. He paused, leaning against the doorway to Margo’s room to torment himself with the sight of Eliot wrapped up in a silk robe like that was appropriate for a Wednesday afternoon. Why were they even bothering with him at this point. Maybe his attention was better than no attention at all?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not true, Bambi.” Eliot took a sip from his martini, using it to gesture toward Quentin. “Before he </span>
  <em>
    <span>lived here, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin graced a soiree with his presence. That one time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin smiled weakly, nodding to himself. Yes. The one party. The one he went into with high hopes, pipe dreams of spending the evening tucked under Eliot’s arm as if to say, ‘Back off, people of all sexual orientations--this one’s mine.’ Instead, when </span>
  <em>
    <span>duty called</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Eliot took up his spot behind the bar, Quentin had sulked in the corner, making fast friends with Josh and his briefcase of narcotics once Julia took off. The Nature student had prescribed him two rosé gummy bears laced with something he called ‘liquid sunshine’ and Quentin proceeded to fall asleep on a bench outside on the patio.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure, Eliot had found him and bundled him up to his own room, tucking him in with a fond shake of his head for his sad little first year plaything who couldn’t handle his booze.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A blast.” Quentin forced the words out. “I’m getting a hang of wards, pretty soon I’ll just be able to stay in my room for the evening without worry someone’s gonna have sex in my bed while I’m gone. Again.” Quentin added, pointedly. Despite himself, he couldn’t help gushing about any new little bit of magic he’d picked up. Every spell was still precious to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hoped it never became mundane.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, if </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> were hooking up in there with someone, that would eliminate this so called </span>
  <em>
    <span>problem, </span>
  </em>
  <span>wouldn’t it?” Margo asked sweetly, too saccharine for someone who’d had sex in Quentin’s room ‘by accident’ as she’d informed him the morning after when she’d come to reclaim her panties from under his bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can put a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lock</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the door if that’s the issue, Q.” Eliot offered, looking between Quentin and Margo with a chagrined expression.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I gotta go.” Quentin waved a hand and took off to loaf around the cafeteria until Julia got out of class.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--------</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You look like you’re going to use the </span>
  <em>
    <span>B-word </span>
  </em>
  <span>there, Quentin.” Julia smirked over at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Go on--do it, just this once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>gonna,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin snapped a coffee stirrer with aggression and mended it just so he could do it again. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>want to. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And if anyone were that </span>
  <em>
    <span>word--</span>
  </em>
  <span>it’s Margo.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Julia raised her eyebrows at him, “Sure you don’t want to use the C-word?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I think she’d take that as a compliment.” Quentin snapped the wood stirrer again, focused on the fibers of the wood so he could knit them back together. “I can’t explain it. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>entitled </span>
  </em>
  <span>and infuriating. I’m going to do it. I’m going to say it. She can be really </span>
  <em>
    <span>bitchy--”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin’s voice rose on the last word, he quickly looked around the cafe to make sure no one was coming for his feminist badge.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wow. um. Okay--didn’t think you’d really say it.” Julia dropped both of her hands to the table. “Can’t say I’m really surprised. Don’t kill me, but are you sure it’s not about--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not about </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eliot.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quentin spat. He took a scalding sip of his latte. His tongue would never recover.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was gonna say, are you sure it’s not an omega thing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Quentin shook his head so rapidly his bangs flew into his eyes. He needed a haircut. “Can I borrow that--” but Julia had already pulled off her hair tie and was handing it over to him. “Margo and I aren’t competing for resources or anything. Why do I care if she’s an omega?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>aren’t you?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Before she came back you and Eliot were pretty tight.” Julia shrugged at him as Quentin leveled her full force with his </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s Not About Eliot</span>
  </em>
  <span> look, which was a complicated combination of rolling his eyes, sighing </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> glaring. “Don’t look at me like that. Maybe part of you resents her for being his friend first.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> an Eliot thing then.” Quentin surmised. “Tell me I’m not delusional about what happened--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh boy.” Julia’s eyes went wide. “No. It was a little bonkers how quickly you fell for him, you know, considering your track record. If you’d just let me </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate</span>
  </em>
  <span> him for you, I feel like the relationship circle would be complete.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin considered this for a long moment, long enough that his drink cooled to the perfect temperature and then rapidly was too cold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So it’s not Margo’s fault that she kinda demanded Eliot’s attention, and I let him go, huh?” Quentin finally asked. The dregs of his latte all deflated at the bottom of his cup. He could relate. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers tightly, trying to head off a tension headache. “Why did I just ghost him? Like--um, that was so fucking stupid. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m so stupid.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Julia reached across the table, taking his hand. She ran her thumb over the scent gland on his wrist in comfort, not typically her thing, but Quentin would take it. He felt like a wrung out old sponge that no one had touched in </span>
  <em>
    <span>weeks.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> stupid.” Julia said firmly. After this he’d ask her for a cigarette since she’d clearly been smoking again. He wanted to find a spot to be maudlin with her. “You ran away, which--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking governing circumstance,” Quentin growled, rolling his eyes at himself. “Wow okay. Yeah. I so regret telling you about that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And I regret having a room next to you and Alice at Brakebills South for </span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever that was</span>
  </em>
  <span> because I can’t exactly unhear--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yeah, the breeding thing that slipped out. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Quentin </span>
  </em>
  <span>would have liked to put that toothpaste back in the tube. It hadn’t even made sense in the moment. Alas. He’d been cold and horny. Alice likewise. They were trying to make it work back at Brakebills.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> discuss this again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Julia snorted. “Or--let’s get out of here and actually make some kind of </span>
  <em>
    <span>plan</span>
  </em>
  <span> so you can live in that house and not feel like you’re a hostage 24/7. Put down some roots. I don’t know, maybe you two can bond over omega stuff. Not Eliot, shit. Just, you know--mutual experience?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gee, thanks.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--------</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two steps forward, one step back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin basically threw himself at Eliot again about a week later. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After his official breakup with Alice that had never really gotten off the ground. Before he’d gotten over the embarrassment of asking her to spend heat with him, only to be turned down. She’d bluntly told him he was monopolizing her time and she couldn’t afford to take a week from her studies to go through heat with him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which--yikes. That was probably for the best. The break up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now </span>
  <em>
    <span>living</span>
  </em>
  <span> in a house with both Eliot </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>Alice, Quentin was more exhausted than anything else. Avoiding Alice was tough, but she was pragmatic enough that she could be in a study group with him and not have it ruin her life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His first foray into mending his friendship with Eliot hadn’t exactly gone to plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin was </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying</span>
  </em>
  <span> to rekindle his friendship with Eliot. It was a stab in the heart every time Eliot showed him even the most platonic kindness. Better than nothing, Quentin supposed. But he’d taken the offer of a cocktail with Eliot and Margo on a whim.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d been lamenting to Eliot and Margo about the breakup, the fire roaring in the darkened common room. That’s what friends did, they talked about their problems. Talking to Eliot, it was just </span>
  <em>
    <span>too easy. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Words kept slipping out of his mouth faster than he could think them through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So of course he ended up in Eliot’s bed again, finally getting fucked within an inch of his life, screaming internally about how he’d made a huge mistake. This was where the stereotype that omegas were sexually driven creatures who’d fuck anything that was shaped like an alpha probably came from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Later, Quentin would blame it on pre-heat and hormones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot’s huge hand had curled around his shoulder “Well, my dear. You do tend to walk around like you need someone to brush your hair and feed you soup,” and for </span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever reason,</span>
  </em>
  <span> that had sparked some desperate need in his body to be close with someone, even if for just one night. Let Eliot take care of him; they both knew it wouldn’t last.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He couldn’t remember what happened to Margo, if she even looked up from pushing back her cuticles, or where she ended up once Quentin had awkwardly announced that he was going to go to bed and Eliot had pronounced that he too was going to take an early night. They’d both just walked up to Eliot’s room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been quick, Quentin’s still in his shirt, trapped with one leg in his jeans around his ankle by the time Eliot’s clever fingers curled inside him and Quentin came with a jolt, static in his ears at how rapidly he hit his peak. If this was going to be the last time, Quentin was </span>
  <em>
    <span>going</span>
  </em>
  <span> to suck Eliot’s dick in goodbye, lose himself in the weight of it on his tongue, the heavy groans and encouragement pouring from Eliot’s lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s clamped down on the urge to beg Eliot to knot him if it was going to be the last time. A little too desperate even for Quentin, that was intimate, getting locked together with someone for an extended period of time. Quentin knew from experience how quickly it could turn from sexy to awkward and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pinchy, </span>
  </em>
  <span>a cold, panicked sweat breaking out over his body as he mentally mapped out where his clothes had ended up so he could get out as quickly as possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t want to trap Eliot there, regretting it while Quentin’s eyes rolled back in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It hadn’t mattered anyway, Eliot’s knot hadn’t popped in the first place and Quentin, perched in Eliot’s lap with the alpha’s hands on his hips, wouldn’t have been able to slow down enough to let it catch. His hands ached from holding onto Eliot’s wrought iron headboard, stopping himself from dragging Eliot’s mouth from sucking a hickey into the left side of his chest up to his neck, just to feel the possibility of his lips there while he came.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>mess.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After, he’d stumbled off the bed, searching for his clothes with shaking hands, patently ignoring the warm slide of come down his leg like he wasn’t going to ‘forget’ to shower that night so he could be gross and hold onto Eliot for a while longer. That maybe Eliot’s next hookup might smell him on Quentin and back off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could stay.” Eliot offered nonchalantly, lighting a cigarette with a snap of his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I stay, I’ll never leave,” Quentin admitted, trying for a joke. But his statement hit flat and sounded so pathetically </span>
  <em>
    <span>honest</span>
  </em>
  <span> to his own ears that he escaped before he could embarrass himself any further.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His heat had hit him hard, like a punch in the stomach a few days later. Quentin had awoken out of the middle of some kind of sexy nightmare, covered in sweat and cursing his unreliable biology that never clued him in on an upcoming heat. The house had been blessedly quiet while Quentin gathered his laptop and some books, scrambled out of his room. And for just a </span>
  <em>
    <span>moment</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’d wondered what would have happened if he’d knocked on the attic door. Just to see what Eliot would do, if his eyes would go all black and he’d take Quentin upstairs and ward up his bedroom like a bank vault to keep everyone out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hazily, Quentin thought of the party the night before, the alpha who’d pulled Eliot up the stairs, never to be seen again. Quentin had tried to make himself available, socialize. Make an effort.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sick to his stomach at the thought of someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>else</span>
  </em>
  <span> upstairs in his Eliot’s room, Quentin fled to the basement, locking himself inside the furnished den with it’s generic alpha hormone scent pumped into the air.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had a full week during his heat to fantasize about getting Eliot’s knot, even if it was also torture knowing the real thing was just upstairs and Quentin was locked in the basement like a werewolf with a bunch of dildos and a fridge full of Lunchables. He hadn’t been able to work up the courage to ask Eliot to stay with him; that was a bridge too far. That was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>blessing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Having Eliot see him like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that,</span>
  </em>
  <span> when he was all, </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Put a baby in me!’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>and sweaty didn’t seem like a solid or, you know, sane idea. He’d never be able to look the guy in the eye again having done that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once again though, Eliot did have a dick worth dropping out of school, and having his memory wiped completely of the whole thing. His body would remember.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Heat made him primal, something hard to contain, getting his period was just the cosmic turd in the swimming pool six weeks later. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow, that hadn’t made it into the romance novels he’d read for research in middle school. The ones he’d smuggled out of the library under his coat while Julia caused a diversion. In all his reading, he’d never encountered so much as a mention of an omega on their period. And his made him so miserable, there was nothing to do but wrap himself around his heating pad. Ted was nowhere in sight to offer Quentin half of one of his muscle relaxers from his bad back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, Quentin supposed, this was his body’s way of punishing him for not conceiving a baby </span>
  <em>
    <span>yet again.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Which was wholly unromantic and therefore didn’t belong in a book written to satiate a teen fantasy. Plus all those omegas always ended up pregnant on the first try.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>-------</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Margo wouldn’t even let him hate her, even a little bit?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe that’s why she and Eliot were a platonically bonded pair. She wore Quentin down until he just accepted that they were friends. They both had that effect on people.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Coldwater--” Margo shouted at him. How did she even </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> he was in the hallway when she was nowhere in sight? “Come in here. I need your body.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it had turned out she meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>literally.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank fuck, I don’t feel like an alien is gonna spring out of my body anymore.” Margo muttered dreamily, her head tucked on his chest. She was pretty light all things considered, but stretched out with her whole body against his, Quentin couldn’t move an inch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Firmly ensconced on the floor of Margo’s nest, he just had to let himself be used as a body pillow for the other omega. Margo didn’t exactly ask nicely. Ever. Really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hesitantly, Quentin dropped a hand on the small of her back. She was dressed in a velour track suit, her hair up in a ponytail. It was the most </span>
  <em>
    <span>casual</span>
  </em>
  <span> Quentin had ever seen her. Maybe that’s why he’d agreed to let her manhandle him down onto the ground. Margo purred, her coconut and shea scent filling his senses. Permission granted, Quentin rubbed her back as she relaxed into him, jolting a bit when her small hand wormed its way under the hem of his shirt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This okay?” Margo slurred a bit against him. There was a discarded vape within arms reach, the small room was hazy with vapor laced with THC.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure. Yeah.” Quentin said, still somewhat paralyzed by fear. “Why exactly is this happening?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eliot’s off doing someone. Something. Who cares.” Margo grumbled, “Cramps are a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bitch. </span>
  </em>
  <span>This is like the only thing that helps other than pot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin’s eyebrows rose, rubbing her back to distract himself from the first part of her statement. “I would mainline Baja Blast if I could.” Quentin sympathized.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mmmm,” Margo purred, “We’ll send Todd for chicken chalupas in a bit. I could house a dozen Cinnabon bites.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckled, Margo clutched him tighter. It seemed he’d be stuck like this for a while. Knowing his own cycle, it was basically a week of misery in which he lost an average of three articles of clothing to blood stains. He could sympathize with her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin resigned himself to this spot on the floor of Margo’s nest for the foreseeable future, helped himself to a hit of her vape pen while the swaths of fabric on her ceiling danced in the hazy high that turned his body into a puddle of goo.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t have a nest of his own, had never seen one this elaborate outside of Tumblr aesthetic posts. Didn’t seem practical.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But nothing about Margo was practical.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He fell into a heavy stupor, Margo like a purring weighted blanket. Her hair tickled his nose, face pressed to the crown of her head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, she woke Quentin up with a sharp poke to his side, exhaling a stream of smoke basically into his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You wanna get high and watch ‘Josie and the Pussycats’?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah--lemme go put on sweats.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin stumbled out of the nest and over to his room, nearly knocking into Eliot, loaded down with shopping bags as he got out to the landing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Woah--” Eliot caught Quentin by the shoulders, righting him with ease. His eyes flicked to Margo’s open door and then back to Quentin quickly, scenting the air. “That’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>surprise.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We d-didn’t.” Quentin stammered, aware that he smelled like a Margo Hanson scented candle at the moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>blame you.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Eliot extricated his hands from Quentin’s shoulders, tucked a bit of Quentin’s hair behind his ear like it wasn’t going to ruin Quentin’s life for the next week. He was just </span>
  <em>
    <span>touchy</span>
  </em>
  <span> with the omegas in his life. Quentin vociferated about this to Julia constantly. Not that he wanted it to stop. “The appeal of omega on omega porn is not lost on me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my god!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot rolled his eyes, patting Quentin on the cheek twice in quick succession. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>kidding.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Though, Margo would make an excellent choice for your first time. She’s very </span>
  <em>
    <span>direct.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should--she wanted you in the first place. Not to, I mean. Not like that. Maybe.” Quentin tangled himself up so thoroughly in his words there was nothing to do but awkwardly gesture to his room to slip away. “You should just go check on her. Okay? She feels like shit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eliot nodded once, picked up his bags and swept into Margo’s room, kicking the door shut behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Margo wouldn’t let him go that easily. She pounded on his door five minutes later, demanding he come back over so all </span>
  <em>
    <span>three</span>
  </em>
  <span> of them could sprawl across the floor of her nest, Quentin safely on one side while Eliot served as Margo’s new pillow on the other. They watched ‘Josie and the Pussycats’, which turned out to be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>weirdly </span>
  </em>
  <span>spot on takedown of consumer culture </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> had both Rachel Leigh Cook and Seth Green to look at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“See,” Margo reached over and squeezed his foot halfway through the movie, “We could be doing this </span>
  <em>
    <span>all the time</span>
  </em>
  <span> if you just took your head out of your twat and realized we’re friends.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shh.” Eliot put a hand over Margo’s mouth, drew her closer into his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quentin forced his attention away from them, back to the laptop perched on a poof a few feet away. While Carson Daly chased Tara Reid and Roasrio Dawson around the set of TRL, trying to kill them with all the acting talent of some on the Jersey Shore, Quentin thought this wasn’t a terrible place to be. That maybe just by having Eliot around in general, he could deal with the fact that they’d never actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> together. Not in that way. Maybe he’d develop a long, embarrassing crush on Margo just as he had with all of his friends and that would take some of the pressure off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But then Eliot took off his cardigan, throwing it over to Quentin with a, “You look cold, Q.” and Quentin knew it down to his bones, he’d never really, truly get over Eliot Waugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that was okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For now.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! I love your comments and treasure them always!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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